Reincarnation???

[Rigamorph]

Does anybody else here believe in reincarnation?
As hard as it is to reconcile with my scientific knowledge, I can't help but think that reincarnation would explain things such as virtuoso children, night terrors of seemingly random events, children who remember past lives, and near-death experiences (where someone who had no heartbeat or EEG can relay events from the time but often from 'outside' the body).
I know many people in 'the West' will ridicule this idea - there are other threads for you guys 😁). I would like to hear from anyone else who shares my views!

Given that far more people are alive now the in the past, where do the extra souls come from?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=0ppZlC2jwag

lucydog Regarding the extra souls. I believe we're part of the whole consciousness/the source. The life forms able to come to life is limitless.

If most people generally have no memory of other lives they've lived then each life is lived anew, but deep down inside us the soul remembers and gathers all these life experiences. It's a mind blowing thing to think we're eternal but mostly that awareness isn't there on the surface of life.

thanks for explaining Vitalogy. I can't say that I find it believable, but it's interesting to hear that rationale.

Interesting video Anasnake

@vitalogy - that's similar to how I see it. In physics we are taught that energy can neither be created nor destroyed....and what are we, if not energy in various forms??

@lucy - Buddhists believe that all life forms are involved in the life cycle, not just humans. So theoretically we would have experienced life as a tree, an insect at some point. More humans are alive today, but many fewer trees for example. We know that the atoms that make our physical body have come from other things, so why not the metaphysical too? Also nobody says reincarnation would be instantaneous at the moment of death. Most of the family stories talk about gaps of at least a few years before the return.

The Buddha taught that enlightenment is the ultimate goal, so you are not stuck in Groundhog Day forever, each life gives opportunity to learn new lessons. Also enlightenment does not depend on the body or material situation. It's not what life throws at you, it's how you deal with it that counts.

I am just regurgitating things I have read, I am very far from experiencing these things for myself, but they make more sense to me than the things I was taught about Christianity in Sunday school.

Also enlightenment does not depend on the body or material situation. It's not what life throws at you, it's how you deal with it that counts. I agree.

The Buddha taught that enlightenment is the ultimate goal, so you are not stuck in Groundhog Day forever, each life gives opportunity to learn new lessons.
That's what I meant when I said that, without the perpetual quest for self improvement, reincarnation sounds like Groundhog Day . But am I correct in assuming that, the better you behave, the higher up the scale you come back at next time? If that's true (and I'm prepared to be corrected) the belief is totally self obsessed. Why would you care for others if the position they are in is because they didn't behave well in a previous life? i.e. you deserve all your misfortunes.

The Buddha's teachings seem a bit tricky to translate directly to English but the gist is that we are all born having the same potential for growth but that it is our own effort throughout (many) lifetimes that can eventually lead to enlightenment

The Buddha also said 'Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense'

For me the infinite is ones own infinite beingness, that which perceives all and perceives the perceiver. That which cannot be named.

noego I wrote this down when I first read it, you reminded me of it.

"Now, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' — then you should enter & remain in them.

Vitalogy

There is a knowing-ness. A knowledge of all things. It has been there in the past and is there now and will be there in the future.
When you know this for your 'self' then all else is no-thing and yet every-thing.

There is a knowing-ness. A knowledge of all things. It has been there in the past and is there now and will be there in the future.
When you know this for your 'self' then all else is no-thing and yet every-thing.

Ive read this half a dozen times and I'm sorry it's complete bollocks, it has no meaning whatsoever

Thank goodness for that jason I thought I was going doolally

I get it noego

Vitalogy

Then you'll understand

Nothing real can be threatened
Nothing unreal exists
Herein lies the peace of God

Ah, I see now, it's a version of Mornington Cresent :

The now is the truth
The now is without end
The truth is without end
Belief is the now

See, it's easy peasy

I don't believe in it but I find it far more believable than am afterlife where you go to heaven and shit. The Baghavad Gita provides are really interesting explication for reincarnation on the premise that all matter it a form of energy and that all energy is God. Material energy (our bodies) exists on a separate plane to spiritual energy (the soul, thoughts, emotions etc). Material energy is deemed illusionary in that it inhibits our perception of spiritual energy because our material reactions seem more palpable (things like hunger, pain etc). While our body exists our spiritual being is tied to it. But when the body ceases to exist the material energy is freed and either returns to God or attaches itself to a new material being. In that sense the things that happen to our body and transient because they die with our body but this that affect our spiritual self (whether that is our feelings, education, spiritual development etc. Are permenant because they are carried to the next body. Like I said I don't believe in it but it seems more plausible.

@lucydogz the exploration is actually that there is no such thing as a shitty situation because it doesn't truly exist iyswim. Poverty etc is just an illusion that you have to overcome to return to God. Like I said I don't believe in it but you are fundamentally misunderstanding. People who do good things are 'rewarded' with a better life except its not actually a reward but a temptation to prevent you from finding God. So if you are wealthy, attractive etc it's harder to find God because it is harder to let it go. To give you a caricature Brahmins do not eat meat despite being better able to afford it while lower castes do. That's because as a brahmin you are expect to be able to achieve a better morality and material sacrifice because your soul is more developed. I don't agree with it at all (as don't many newer offshoots of Hinduism that reject the caste system) but it is a very interest example of how class is deemed a reflection on worthiness and carries its own expectations for moral behaviour. There are a lot of parralells to be drawn between the Hindu cadre system and victorian England really. It shows how all religions entrench inequality by providing justifications for why the poor are poor and then proving them right through less expectation for the poor to behave in a way that the religion deems moral. I would argue that it has actually remained an element of British society despite the loss of religion. The poor are demonised for scrounging off of the rich but they are essential forces and tempted into it in equal measure by an oversized welfare state that takes away what would be their disposable income and suppresses opportunity to consumer choice while also encouraging finacially irresponsible decisions by the sheer prolificacy of state services. The poor are universally set up to fail and then blamed when they do. The only chance you have as a poor person is of you are on the outside, an immigrant. Probably one of the reasons why countries with higher proportions of immigrants tend to have better social mobility and weaker class structures than countries like Britain with a large local population.

Poverty etc is just an illusion that you have to overcome to return to God.
So if you are wealthy, attractive etc it's harder to find God because it is harder to let it go.
That just sounds like a good way of rationalising not dealing with social issues to me. In fact, I think it's offensive to have that rationale for poverty.
It shows how all religions entrench inequality by providing justifications for why the poor are poor and then proving them right through less expectation for the poor to behave in a way that the religion deems moral.
Have you read any of the Bible? I'd be interested if you could provide any justification for that statement from the Gospels. I've read some of the Koran, and I've never seen any justification for social inequality in there either.
I fail to see what relevence the last part of your post has.

It is good to be sceptical. Much better to be sceptical than to blindly accept someone else's truth.

Truth is only that once you have discovered it for yourself.

Keep searching, keep asking 'who am I, why am I here?' Question everything.

That's really good advice Rigamorph

Once the body mind has been let go and the eternal within you has been discovered then reincarnation doesn't really matter.

Are we back on Mornington Crescent again? 😁😁

@lucydogz And if you believe in reincarnation without the pursuit of self improvement, what's the point of just going round and round and round?

I believe it's more to do with experiencing life from lots of different persepctives, for interest / curiosity rather than to try and improve (although as a human you'd hope most people want to strive to be "better" and learn more).

If you were a lion you'd be quite "bad" by human standards, killing small defenseless animals for your own gain, fighting rivals, maybe killing a rival's offspring, But we don't make a moral judgement on that because we understand animals are going by instinct.

I go along with the idea that we might just choose to try out different lives - maybe living as a tree, as an antelope, a poor beggar, a queen... no reflection on whether we've been good or bad, just the sense that we have time to experience everything!